Scribes & Archers

If you’re trying to decide what project to work on next, whether for a writing challenge this fall or simply because you’ve finished one project and you’re ready for something new, this post is all about how to simplify that process–both now and in the future. I’ve written on this topic before, but I wanted to put together an updated and expanded guide that better serves you. Note that these tips can also help if you’re choosing what project to work toward publishing or querying, though I recommend also checking out this video from Bethany Meyer if that’s the season you’re in.

Without further ado, let’s get into some tips for developing an effective story prioritization system!

Understand Your Rhythms

As you begin to develop a system for project prioritization, it’s key to know how you work best. This will help you decide what kind of project to work on next, at what stage, and how many projects you can take on at a time. It’s also important to be aware of how these rhythms might differ as life seasons change; you may be able to juggle half a dozen drafts at once for years, only to hit a point where you find you work much better by honing in on just one for a time, and vice versa. Remember that these changes aren’t a sign that you’ve grown weaker as a writer, but sometimes that you’ve grown in your craft or simply reached a different season that’s not better or worse.

Knowing how many projects you can focus on at a time is really important, as this will help you to know whether you need to choose just one project off the list or three or five at a time. I can personally handle 1-2 book projects at a time, with short stories here and there, and it helps if, when I do work on multiple books at once, they’re different genres and/or at different stages of the writing process (e.g. I’m drafting one and editing the second, or editing one and outlining the next). But that’s just my current rhythm; I used to be able to draft three fantasy novels all at once, and your rhythm might be something different altogether!

It’s also important to identify broader patterns to your work, beyond a single season of focus on so-many projects. Do you need a break period between finishing one project and starting the next? Do you need a just-for-fun project to stay on the back burner so you can work on it when you start to burn out on your focus project? Do you have to alternate genres from focus project to focus project? Do you start to burn out if you spend too long working on books of the same series back-to-back? (I found out the hard way that I need breaks between books of a series when I burned out on Thunder.)

Make sure that as you look at your working rhythms, you account for the rest necessary within those rhythms as well. Rest is a key part of having a sustainable work rhythm, whether that means taking complete breaks from writing or having projects that are themselves a break from other work (or both). When I burned out on Thunder, my worldbuilding book proved to be the break I needed from that series. For a time, I also had a gothic fantasy project I would write by the seat of my pants every so often when I felt like writing but didn’t feel like working on any of my core projects at the time (which actually proved to be a really interesting experiment in using subtext in dialogue). It is 100% okay to have projects that are just for you, just for fun, “rest” projects, and just to take breaks! That doesn’t make you–or your project–a failure*. I promise.

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Know What You’re Passionate About

The second key part of developing a prioritization system that works for you is to know what you’re passionate about when it comes to the projects you work on. This, too, can change as life seasons change and interests come and go, but knowing what you’re passionate about–both the values that stay the same and the interests that change–can make it a lot easier to choose what projects to focus on.

If a specific project is grabbing your attention and capturing your imagination, that might be a good idea to prioritize! But it also might be helpful to know why this project is so exciting to you. Are the themes important to you? Do you love the world? Does it feature tropes you really enjoy? Is it for an age range you’re passionate about writing for? Is it a step out of your comfort zone? Knowing these things will not only help you to detect patterns in your projects–as certain themes, tropes, etc. will likely crop up again and again–but might also help you to develop projects that you’re not as drawn to and to imbue them with features that will make them more interesting and important to you.

Especially if your project prioritization is tied to publishing plans, knowing what your mission is with writing and how your various ideas fit or mismatch with that mission can help you decide what is the next important step toward those goals and what might distract from them–or simply need to be a more intentional diversion.

Not sure how to find your interests or incorporate your unique passions into your writing? Subscribe to download the Worldview Focus Questions worksheet!

Monitor Story Development

Having a way to keep track of how well-developed a story idea is may make it easier for you to choose your next project. If Project A is already fully outlined and just waiting to have a full draft written, while Project B is only the kernel of an idea, Project A might be the simpler choice to prioritize next. Of course, the level of preparation that you’re looking for in a project may differ depending on what stage the project is at and whether you’re more of a discovery writer or a plotter.

While starting with a more developed idea may be a practical help that makes the drafting (or editing) process easier, it’s also an indication that you value this project enough to have developed it to a meaningful degree already–whether consciously or not. If a project has been whirring away in the back of your mind for a while, or you’ve set aside dedicated time to develop its plot, characters, world, etc., then chances are it’s a project you find interesting and/or important and it’s worth considering placing it toward the top of the priority list.

Connecting Ideas

Lastly, I want to talk about some different options when it comes to connecting ideas–whether to make use of ideas that can’t sustain a whole book, use those connections as another prioritization metric, or just simplify your project list.

First, if you have a story idea that doesn’t seem to be sustainable for a whole book, you have a couple of options. One is to see if there’s a way you can incorporate the idea into a different, larger project on the list. If you have another project of a similar tone, theme, setting, etc., this may be a useful option. Another option is simply to turn the idea into a short story or novella; maybe it doesn’t need to be as long, but it’s still worth writing as a story of its own. Lastly, perhaps the project needs to be left at the bottom of the priority list for a while to see if more pieces present themselves and it can be fleshed out into something bigger. Sometimes small ideas just need time to percolate.

If you’re overwhelmed by how many disparate projects you have and you want some way to tie some of them together, consider whether they might be suitable to take place in the same world or universe. This is a relatively easy way to build connections between your projects and help readers stay engaged with your work as you publish. Some projects might even be able to follow the same characters! If you’re not sure how to decide whether you need numerous worlds, or how to tie existing stories into the same world, check out this post written around the premise of Brandon Sanderson’s “Third Law of Magic.”

Connections–whether pre-established or discovered/developed later–can also be a helpful means of prioritizing projects. If you’ve published a book set in World A, your readers are likely to want more of that world (and/or series, if applicable). Does that mean you can’t work on anything set in World B instead? Of course not! Especially if you make a plan to cycle through different worlds/series, you can still work with the personal rhythms discussed before. But if you’re trying to decide between World A and World B and you would be able to work on either within your work rhythm, knowing what your readers are and aren’t expecting (or even just how much time you can take away from a series before losing continuity), knowing what comes next can be a helpful aspect of prioritizing the next right project.

If you’re into the publishing stage, the order of a series or the order of projects along a particular world’s timeline may be an important factor to consider, as well. While some projects may be more independent of one another even within a particular setting, others may depend on prior context–or may suffer from being published as “prequels” where readers already know what comes later along the timeline. This is something I’ve had to consider with Lightning and Thunder, as these are some of the latest projects in their world’s history and I’ve had to ask myself what mystery will be lost in prior projects and what context will be lacking if I publish them before certain other projects set in the same world. Sometimes other factors may trump series order or similar considerations, but if you’re still struggling to decide between a handful of projects, this might be a helpful thing to think about to break the tie.

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Do you have trouble choosing between project ideas? Which of these points has been most helpful to you? What are you most excited about with regard to your current or next project? Comment below!

Want to grab the spreadsheet template I use for capturing and prioritizing story ideas? Need a system for tracking the development of your story ideas? The story ranking worksheet is designed to be that tool. Sign up below for access!